On Social Theory & Sociology

The introduction to The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory provided an interesting metaphor explaining the nature and work of social theory, including sociological theory (Turner, 2009). He said that we can imagine theory as a scaffold built around a building that is the social reality. This scaffold helps sociologists move around with some ease, take a look at the nooks and corners of the social building, and gain a better understanding of it. It also helps us gauge which parts of the social building we have no idea of, and for which parts we need to build further scaffolding to investigate¹. Social theories, including sociological theories, are basically concepts or ideas or sets of concepts or ideas developed by people to better understand and explain their social surroundings. At their simplest, they are regularly developed and used by all of us. The popular idea that shopkeepers and autorickshaw drivers charge more when they know that the customer is someone new in town and uninformed is a rudimentary social theory. Same goes for the ever present fear of many elders that society in the hands of the new youth is at the verge of collapse. We all observe our social surroundings (though often unsystematically) and draw conclusions from our observations. This helps us make sense of our extremely complicated and somewhat debilitating world. They provide order amidst chaos by categorizing and labeling social realities, and offer a range of predictions. They help us choose our everyday course of action in social settings.

The British journal of sociology, 2016

The basic argument in this article is that sociology and social science more generally are today severely hampered by the lack of attention being paid to theory. Methods--qualitative as well as quantitative methods--have proven to be very useful in practical research (as opposed to theory); and as a result they dominate modern social science. They do not, however, do the job that belongs to theory. One way to redress the current imbalance between methods and theory, it is suggested, would be to pay more attention to theorizing, that is, to the actual process that precedes the final formulation of a theory; and in this way improve theory. Students of social science are today primarily exposed to finished theories and are not aware of the process that goes into the production and design of a theory. Students need to be taught how to construct a theory in practical terms ('theorizing'); and one good way to do so is through exercises. This is the way that methods are being taugh...

Contemporary Philosophy and Social Science, 2019

2015

2019

2019

This course is intended to introduce you to social theory, the process of theorizing, and the canonical works that arguably serve, and some that should serve, as the core of an inclusive professional identity for sociologists. As a one semester course, this can by no means be a comprehensive theory survey: the goal is help you develop a basic literacy of key sociological texts ranging from the 19th century to the present that can serve as a foundation and springboard for your own research and teaching interests. The course asks what it means to think sociologically: What is social reality? Which components are important? How do we go about analyzing these? It traces out lineages of how social scientists have addressed these questions, the logics and styles that set different streams apart from each other, and the substantive areas they do and do not address. During the course, we will be thinking through three overarching questions. First, many of the "canonical" social theory texts were written from the standpoint of a relatively small cultural group in the Global North but have been read over the years as presenting a universalistic vision of humanity that tends to ignore gender, race, sexual orientation, and empire/colonialism. We will ask how classical and contemporary theorists' treatment-explicit or implicit-of race, sex, and empire affected their work and its potential to provide satisfactory explanations of important social phenomena. Second, middle-range theory has dominated sociology for decades now. By considering these larger theoretical frameworks, this course implicitly rejects the view that middle-range theory alone can guide and organize research in the social sciences and encourages you to reflect on the relationship between the works under consideration and the project of middle-range theory building. Third, we should all reflect on how to use theory and theorize in our own research practice.

2016

Main points • Sociology is a scientific approach to understanding people in society. • Social structures can often exert more influence over our behaviour than we would expect. • Sociological perspectives on health emphasise that it is vital to understand the social in order to fully understand health and illness. • The sociological imagination invites us to think beyond our own subjective perceptions. • Sociological theories are useful in moving away from common-sense understandings of society.

Sociedade E Estado, 2022

LOJ Medical Sciences, 2018

The aim of science is to promote the Good society. This is-since the time of Enlightenment-the meaning of science Kant [1]. At that time science was understood as inherently progressive: contributing to a better, good society Hampson. This progressiveness characterized also sociology a hundred years later when it was established as a science of the society Durkheim [2]. Though now objectivity also was stressed, causing a contradiction between what is-i.e., the objectivity of science-and what ought to be-politics, i.e., the concerns for ideologues. Weber [3]. Thus, it seemed impossible to promote the Good society in the name of science. Understanding and Thinking Sociology is the science of society, but what is society? Is it an object Durkheim [4] A very old notion of society is that it is togetherness Gadamer? How can we come to an answer to the question of what the society is? First, we must make society into a problem. A precondition for answering the question is that society can be something different from the given society that we live in and how this is conceived Kant [1]. The idea that things can be different makes critical thinking possible Kant [1,5]. Critical thinking by necessity starts with the notion that there is a difference between that what "is given" and that what can be. In general, we just repeat that which we have been taught but in order to think-e.g., about society-we must discover the difference between that which "is": the "given" and that which "can be". One may say that thinking starts with this difference and is spontaneously, by nature is critical 1. Is or Ought One might believe that this is obvious to everyone interested in science and social science but on the contrary: it is not so. In "society" and science, society is presented upside down Marx [6]. In science a since then long-lasting distinction was made at the beginning of the 20 th century between that which "is" and that which "ought" to be. Max Weber, an early German sociologist said that science deals with "is" while "ought" to belong to ideology and politics. Weber [7]. For our purpose, elaborating on the meaning of sociology as a science of society it is useful to refer to Wilhelm Dilthey [8], a German contemporary of Weber who made a distinction between "science" and "the human science". He declared "nature we explain,